The present invention relates to a novel method for controlling sanitary and agricultural pests or, more particularly, to a method for controlling sanitary and agricultural pests using a relatively inexpensive compound having absolutely no toxic effect to mammals including man and useful or domestic animals and not used hitherto as an insecticide.
Needless to say, a great number of synthetic and naturally occurring compounds have been proposed and practically used as an insecticide to control the population of various pests, i.e. noxious insects, harmful against sanitation of human life and agricultural art including forestry, horticulture and the like. Most of the prior art insecticidal compounds are expensive which limits the applicability of the compound from the economic standpoint. Moreover, in recent years, certain species of insects exposed to a particular insecticide compound rapidly acquire strong resistance against the compound so that the insecticidal effect initially expected to the compound is lost within a relatively short period of time after the insecticide compound has come into practical application.
Even worse, most of the hitherto known insecticide compounds or especially those prepared synthetically are not free from the problem of toxicity to the human body and domestic animals and accumulation of insecticide compounds in the environment is one of the problems of very serious public concern from the standpoint of environmental protection.
Thus, it is eagerly desired to develop a method for controlling ectoparasitic or non-ectoparasitic pests on human and animal bodies or household sites as well as agricultural pests in the field without the problems of high cost acquired resistance and toxicity of the insecticide compound.
Recently, a pediculicidal method has been disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,146,619 according to which a linear organosiloxane polymer having repeating units R.sub.2 SiO in which each R is an alkyl or aryl group and having a viscosity of less than about 20,000 centistokes is applied to an animal or human. This method is, however, not effective for controlling ectoparasites and their ova and, moreover, less effective for controlling pests other than lice.